1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a conveyer for overturning slide fasteners while conveying them from a processing or finishing station to a packaging station.
2. Prior Art
In the manufacture of slide fasteners, a continuous slide fastener chain with sliders mounted thereon is horizontally fed through successive processing stations, such as a top end-stop applying station and a chain severing station. During that time, the slide fastener stringers are kept upside down to hold the respective slider pull tabs in a vertically depending posture so as not to hinder processing to be achieved at the foregoing stations. Then the severed or finished slide fasteners are delivered to a packaging station in which instance the slide fasteners must be turned over for enabling convenient packaging. To this end, various apparatus have been proposed for overturning the finished slide fasteners.
One example of such proposed apparatus is disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 52-10263. The disclosed apparatus comprises, as shown in FIG. 7 of the accompanying sheets of drawing, an overturning plate A pivotably disposed between adjacent ends of two belt conveyers for overturning upside-down slide fasteners B as they are delivered from one conveyer to the other conveyer. Another overturning apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 55-34088 comprises, as illustrated here in FIG. 8, a pivotable pallet C disposed below a discharge unit for receiving thereon upside-down slide fasteners B, the pallet being angularly movable to throw the slide fasteners onto a lower belt conveyer during which time the slide fasteners are overturned.
The known overturning plate or pallet is complicated in construction and is difficult to operate reliably. Furthermore, such apparatus is not suitable for use with a relatively long slide fastener such as a separable slide fastener because such long slide fastener is likely to twist when thrown toward the conveyer. The slide fasteners discharged onto the conveyer are likely to become at random with the result that packaging of the finished slide fasteners is difficult to achieve.